Frontlines: The Drug Trade Moves Online

“People are still getting their hands on things like mephedrone, 2-CI and synthetic cannabis.”

That was Global Drug Survey founder Dr. Adam Winstock in April confirming what Hot Press and the addiction specialist we’ve worked closely with these past few years, Dr. Garrett McGovern, have known all along.
Namely that when the then Minister for Health, Mary Harney, closed the head shops down in 2010, the products they sold didn’t disappear but went straight onto the illegal market - or the internet.
Of the 820 Irish people who completed the in-depth GDS - see hotpress.com for the findings - 10.5% admitted to buying drugs online.
In a matter of minutes, Hot Press was this week able to find sites offering to sell all-comers mephedrone, 2-CI, BZP, MBZP, Procaine, 4-MPP, MDPV and 4,4’-DMAR - the uncontrolled substance that the EU’s European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction suggest was a factor in 19 of the drug-related deaths, which occurred between June 2013 and February 2014 in Northern Ireland.
“The substance was first detected in Holland in December 2012,” the EMCDDA say. “A range of adverse effects associated with 4-4’-DMAR have been reported, including agitation, hyperthermia, foaming at the mouth, breathing problems and cardiac arrest. The use of other drugs in combination with 4-4’-DMAR appears to have been a factor in most of the fatalities recorded and, in many cases, the deaths are still being investigated.”
Supposed ‘legal’ highs have also been found by the EMCDDA to contain PMA and PMMA, two proscribed substances which, say the Gardai, have been “implicated” in the deaths of six people in the Republic.
While the full toxicology reports have yet to be published, speculation is rife that PMA/PMMA was a factor in seven UCD students being hospitalised in May after taking a supposedly new drug called Scuzz.
A few days after the tabloids ran their suitably lurid stories, the Gardai clarified that, “There is no evidence of any cocktail. The hospitalised students had taken amphetamines and LSD separately.”
It was the sort of honest, straight-up statement we tend not to associate with officialdom here.
In addition to their online availability, PMA/PMMA pills and powder are being sold by dealers here as ecstasy. Because it takes longer to kick in, there’s a danger of users thinking they’ve bought dud or sub-standard drugs and upping their dosage. The harm reduction advice from the likes of the Global Drug Survey and Drug Science is take less than half the pill or equivalent quantity of powder you normally would, and wait at least two hours before re-dosing. Better still, give ‘mystery white powders’ a wide berth.
Eighty-one new psychoactive substances were detected by the EU’s Early Warning system in 2013, bringing the total number of different mind-altering drugs to 350.
Someone who’s not in the least bit surprised by this state of chemical affairs is Mike Power, the author of Drugs 2.0: The Web Revolution That’s Changing How The World Gets High.
“Of those 81, two-thirds are probably synthetic cannabis products but, whatever way you look at it, there are a lot of substances out there which are seeking to replace illegal alternatives,” Power, who covers the drugs beat for The Guardian, tells Hot Press. “A lot of them are made in laboratories in China where, as long as the drugs are being exported out of the country and there’s foreign currency coming in, the authorities turn a blind eye. Some are research chemicals that we know next to nothing about. Any company that’s making agricultural products or is involved in perfumery can churn out virtually unlimited amounts of synthetic drugs. You only need a relatively small number of them to supply the global market. They’ve people subtly tweaking formulas so that as soon as ABC1X is banned they’re ready to go with ABC2X and ABC3X and so on. It’s a game of cat and mouse that presently they’re winning.
“When Chinese authorities did bow to international pressure and banned mephedrone, production switched to India where they have their own factories manufacturing cocaine, amphetamine, ecstasy and cannabis substitutes. Uppers, downers… they’re all available online with thousands upon thousands of people buying them.”
According to Power, western drug policies have “handed the initiative to crazed chemists in China and to head shop owners and website owners.
“It’s a very poor substitute for real policy,” he continues. “We have massive availability of poor quality, often contaminated and unlabelled drugs and absolutely no enforcement.”
Posing a few years ago as a potential buyer, a colleague of Power’s, Simon Parry, journeyed to a drugs factory three hours from Shanghai, which employs 65 people and claims to ship “hundreds of kilograms” every week to the UK.
“We have agents in Europe so we can send to Ireland, Austria, Spain and Italy,” Parry was told. “Then the package will be re-sent to the UK from those countries. Within Europe, the UK customs normally will not check. If it is stopped we always refund or reship. That is why we have so many customers in the UK. There is no risk for them.”
Power is in no doubt that quite a few of those shipped kilos remain in Ireland.
“It’s naive to think that Ireland is just a stop-off point for these drugs en route to the UK,” he resumes. “If you order it from China, you can say they sent the wrong thing or it was never meant for you anyway. Countries go on about increased vigilance, but look for instance at the Royal Mail. This is an institution that’s been funded by the taxpayer. They’ve have an enormous pension deficit, they can’t meet their obligations. In the UK alone there are 95 million pieces of post a day. You can’t x-ray or sniff all of those.”
In addition to China and India, the EMCDDA believe that significant amounts of synthetic drugs are being manufactured in Belgium and Holland.
Contacted by Hot Press, the Gardaí issued an updated warning to potential PMA and PMMA users; explained how the substances are being monitored and insisted they’re keeping a close eye on the internet drug trade.
“Any suspected drugs seized are tested by scientists at the Forensic Science Lab to determine what they contain,” reveals a spokesman. “Although there are inherent dangers in the misuse of any drugs there is a particular concern at this time regarding a substance which has been found in ‘Ecstasy’ tablets in Ireland and across Europe. This substance is Paramethoxymethylamphetamine (PMMA) or Paramethoxyamphetamine (PMA). The pills where this substance has been detected on analysis in recent months are green pills with the logo of an ‘Apple’ embossed on them, green pills with the logo of a ‘Rolex’ symbol and also in white pills with a ‘Mitsubishi’ logo.
“‘Ecstasy’ tablets are traditionally expected to contain Methylenedioxymethylamphetamine (MDMA),” they continue. “The reality is that even aside from the three aforementioned pills known at this time to contain PMMA, other pills that come onto the illicit drug market may also contain this dangerous substance. PMMA has also been implicated in deaths in Ireland where it is known it was taken in powder form.
“Evidence has shown that the effect of this substance is different to MDMA as the onset of the drug is slower meaning that people are known to take more to achieve the feeling that they may expect from traditional MDMA. This has led to rapidly increased heart rate, extremely high body temperatures, respiratory failure and sometimes death. Ahead of the summer months and upcoming music festivals the Health Service and An Garda Siochana, working together, wish to do everything possible to raise awareness with regard to the dangers of this substance.
“Gardaí work closely with the Irish Medicines Board and Revenues Customs Service in relation to drugs being purchased on the internet and imported into the country.”
The Global Drug Survey also revealed that 9.2% of Irish respondents are willing to ingest ‘mystery white powders’.
“People are into poly-drug use,” resumes Mike Power. “When they’re doing that with new drugs, they’re taking additional risks because we just don’t know what these chemicals do. There’s no cultural water-table to draw from. At age 18, I could wander around fields and warehouses on ecstasy really quite safely. It wasn’t as crazy and people looked out for each other. Now it’s virtual land, it’s on the ‘net, which isn’t positive in my opinion.”
In a bid to counter ‘mystery white powder’ recklessness, online communities like pillreports.com regularly issue peer-to-peer warnings about substances they consider to be dangerous – the most recent Irish red alert being in relation to ‘Green Monster’ pills, which poster Ravey Davey was concerned contained PMA. It’s anecdotal rather than scientific, but does provide users with an early detection system that the Gardaí, Health Board and relevant government departments don’t.

The China Syndrome
A kilo of BZP, a party drug banned here in 2009 by Mary Harney, can be ordered online from Lai Yang Healthmate Chemical Co. Ltd in Qingdao, Shandong province for $64.
“Our corporation specialises in the sale of agricultural products, silica gel products, medical products, pharmaceutical products etc.,” reads their website profile. “The company has cooperated with many clients both from domestic and overseas, and has obtained consistently high praise from our customers since it was set up.”
Their 35-strong list of products also includes Procaine, 4-MPP, MCPP, MBZP and unregulated weight-less chemicals like 2, 4-Dinitrophenol.
Serving “a global export market”, Lai Yang Healthmate accept payment by T/T, Western Union and Money Gram. It took us four minutes to find them on Google.